David Colborne reviewed They thought they were free by Milton Mayer
The more things change...
5 stars
As an examination of the German people after World War 2, "They Thought They Were Free" has its flaws. Demographically, the city chosen by Mayer to examine was more supportive of the Nazi program and less scarred by the horrors of war than most. Mayer's sweeping generalizations of the nature of the German people has its flaws as well, especially with the benefit of hindsight. As Mayer himself attests, he was an American in Allied-occupied Germany who didn't know the language. He knew there were limits to what he could accomplish — and he was largely correct about them.
As an examination of specific German people — an examination of some of the "little people " who were attracted to Hitler's program — the book has much to offer. The anti-intellectualism that discouraged development of any coherent policy theories (lest a learned writer of National Socialist theory becomes disgraced …
As an examination of the German people after World War 2, "They Thought They Were Free" has its flaws. Demographically, the city chosen by Mayer to examine was more supportive of the Nazi program and less scarred by the horrors of war than most. Mayer's sweeping generalizations of the nature of the German people has its flaws as well, especially with the benefit of hindsight. As Mayer himself attests, he was an American in Allied-occupied Germany who didn't know the language. He knew there were limits to what he could accomplish — and he was largely correct about them.
As an examination of specific German people — an examination of some of the "little people " who were attracted to Hitler's program — the book has much to offer. The anti-intellectualism that discouraged development of any coherent policy theories (lest a learned writer of National Socialist theory becomes disgraced later), the creation of and eventual abandonment through neglect of a party-run religion, and the steady expansion of state sponsored anti-Semitism provide examples of authoritarian behavior that all ring true 70 years later.
Where the book truly excels is as an examination of America through the eyes of Germans in the mid-1950s. The hypocrisy of Jim Crow, the stupidity of McCarthyism, and the self-destructive support of fascist movements by the CIA to oppose Soviet-sponsored Communism are all laid bare. The corruption of machine-era politics, in which state public employees still "voluntarily" donate to the political party in charge, is used by Mayer's Germans to partially explain why they held little value in American-style democracy. As a slice of introspection in which Americans started to seriously consider the gap between the idealized version of themselves they pitched on postcards, advertisements, and school lessons against the observed realities of American life, the book offers insights which remain pertinent to the present day.
